Grows on You
by YumKiwiDelicious
Summary: 5 times Max gets called dad and 1 time he doesn't. Fury Road fix-it


1.

The first time it happened, Max could honestly say it had caught him off guard. Life in the Citadel was a bit hectic and disorganized after they returned, but things were beginning to slow down and the Road Warrior was just getting used to the constant noise from the overflow of people that lived around him. There was really no choice to do otherwise; the Citadel had probably the largest population the post apocalyptic world had to offer in ways of haphazardly rebuilt civilizations. Some noise was to be expected.

Day in and day out people were constantly shouting to each other. So much so that Max had learned to tune it out, going selectively deaf to all but his own name and the occasional "Fool!" shouted by an irate Furiosa. Generic cries like "Hey!" and "Papa!" may as well have been the roars of an engine for all the meaning they had to him as he shouldered his way through the crowd, headed towards the bullet farm. It was for this reason that it took a well aimed stone hitting the back on his head to gain his attention.

He turned, frown at the ready, only to be met with the piercing eyes of The Dag. Life in the new Citadel had done her well; she wasn't nearly so pale any longer though her eyes were the same icy blue. Her belly was still flat though healers had insured her baby was growing normally and she had developed wirey muscles all along her arms and legs from working in the gardens. At that moment she was fixing Max with a largely annoyed, but also partially wounded look. Max raised an eyebrow at her.

"Papa," she hissed at him, hands on hips, "I was calling for you!"

Max furrowed his brow in confusion, pondering how he could have possibly missed her calling out his name when he realized she had not been calling his name. He eyed her curiously, trying to think of some reason she might have referred to him as 'papa'. She grew impatient before he could think of one, rolling her eyes and grabbing his wrist as she turned to head back in the opposite direction.

"I asked the War Boys to find me more seeds on their run and they brought me nicht! You have to talk to them."

He was too surprised to comment on her new name for him and so just let her drag him along, all the while ranting in that unconscious way she did, not caring at all if what she was saying was being planted and allowed to grow in the listener's mind. White hair flapping in the wind, she dug her nails into her papa's arm, dragging him down so she could babble directly into his ear. She really was a loveable dag and for that Max would go and grumble disapprovingly at the War Boys and only in the quiet hours of the night confess to Furiosa about what The Dag had called him. Her course laughter would bring a smile to his face.

2.

The second time it happened was still surprising, but Max would later reason that he should have seen it coming. The other girls had made no comment when The Dag had continued to refer to him as 'Papa', only Toast even lifting a brow at the phrase. Life went on as normally as could be expected and soon he was used to hearing the term and turning to respond to it whenever it was hollered in his direction. He tried not to think about what it meant for himself and the girl, but occasionally he'd ponder the relationship. All of their relationships really.

This time around he was working on an engine and pondering when he glanced over his shoulder at the sound of Capable approaching, mouth already going a mile a minute as she talked at Furiosa who had come much more quietly. The two women were heading in his direction, but seemed to not notice him and Max viewed this as a blessing. Capable could be...difficult.

"So I was thinking that since they're only going on a short run and it's only to map out further roads and not look for any supplies really that I could go and keep Nux company since he says driving the rig can get really boring when everyone else wants to be a Lancer."

She had somehow managed to finish what was apparently a proposal to the older woman by the time they were just passing on Max's left. The younger woman had her hair tied in it's familiar two braids, but was wearing pants rather than her usual white dress. Whenever she wanted to travel with Nux she wore pants, stating it made her more 'road ready' as well as made her seem tougher to the War Boys. She had yet to go on a single run.

The gruff man was sure Furiosa was going to refuse the request just as she had all others before it, but then she turned and caught his eye. That smirk, half inviting and half predatory, put a strange feeling in his gut and he averted his gaze just as Furiosa paused and turned to face an expectant looking Capable. With a nod of her shaved head, she gestured the red-head towards the road warrior.

"Go ask Max."

He glared at her retreating back as he was set upon by the late Immortan Joe's most persistent wife. With tumbling words and flapping hands Capable restated the plan for the run and her reasons for going and before Max knew it, he was at the business end of a pair of very large, hopeful green eyes. He groaned internally, mourning the loss of silence staying in the Citadel had cost him. He shook his head and went back to the engine.

"But Nux would be with me the whole time!" He shook his head even quicker, not turning around. "Please, dad?"

He banged his head on the hood of his once top notch car and swore he could hear a harsh yet feminine chuckle not far off. Turning to Capable he could have rolled his eyes at how thick she was laying on her pout. He knew though that she hadn't called him 'dad' just to convince him to let her go. The term had fallen from her lips naturally, and she gave no sign she even realized she had said it meaning she probably referred to him as that in her head all the time.

With another heavy sigh, he finally nodded his ascent and Capable squealed, throwing herself up into his arms for a very one sided hug. She thanked him profusely, somehow managing to hold herself back from kissing his cheeks but not from dropping a few more 'dad's into the mix. When she finally detached herself, she was immediately off and running to where the War Boys kept their wheels, no doubt to tell Nux the good news. Max just shook his head and went back to the engine, choosing to ignore the tiny smirk on his own lips.

He blamed Furiosa. Honestly, she might as well have said, 'Go ask your dad.'

3\. and 4.

"DADDY!"

It wasn't a name he was used to, but it was said by a tiny voice he recognized and with such fear that Max immediately reacted. Gun raised to shoot the head off of anyone that dared threaten Cheedo, Max was nearly bowled over as the literal little girl flung herself into him, putting her face to his chest for only a moment before skittering around to hide behind his back. She was shaking like a leaf.

"She wants to hit me!"

He had trained his eyes on Cheedo the Fragile as soon as she'd clung to him, scanning her body for any injuries, but when she pointed in the direction she had come from, he swung around, gun out to shield her from danger. Instead of a group of sex crazed men, he saw Toast the Knowing stomping towards them, a scowl on her pretty face as she approached. She held a shotgun in one hand, gripping it by the barrel as if she meant to swing the thing.

"She broke my gun!"

"It was an accident!"

"When're you gonna learn to keep your hands off things that aren't yours?!"

The short haired woman lunged for Cheedo, but Max held her off, trying to convey his annoyance and disappointment at the situation through a series of frowns which both girls ignored. Cheedo screeched as Toast chased her, the two girls running circles around the man who tried and failed repeatedly to keep them apart. They were screaming now.

"A GUN DOESN'T BELONG IN THE GARDENS ANYWAY!"

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN THROW IT DOWN THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN!"

Max believed he was only moments away from truly losing his patience and actually yelling at the girls when a shot rang out, echoing all through the citadel. Without thinking, the Road Warrior grabbed the two girls and threw them to the ground before diving on top of them, arms up to protect their heads as they clung to each other, fight forgotten.

"Enough," growled a familiar voice when the sound of the gun being fired had stopped ringing in all their ears. Rolling off Cheedo and Toast, Max frowned at Furiosa who offered her metal arm to help him up. "You two are bickering like children when you should be out in the city helping. Apologize to Max for bothering him and then get back to work."

Let it never be said Furiosa was soft on the girls, because they both looked thoroughly reprimanded as they picked themselves up from the dirt. Heads cast lowed, they shuffled up to Max who had his hands on his hips and a stern look on his face.

"Sorry, daddy," Cheedo mumbled, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before scurrying off towards the gardens, probably to enlist The Dag to help protect her against the other girl.

"Yeah sorry, dad," Toast mimicked, eyes on the ground as she picked up her gun again and departed after a nod to Furiosa.

Max watched the two girls head off in opposite directions and wondered how long he would have survived their bickering if Furiosa had not intervened. The former imperator elbowed her companion, signaling for him to walk beside her as she continued her rounds through the Citadel. They often did this together; checking up on the people to make sure they were being cared for in the Wasteland.

"Don't worry," she said vaguely after they had stopped to chat with a few families, "You'll get used to it."

"Used to what?" he inquired, nodding his head as Capable rushed by with an excited wave, Nux on her heels.

"Having kids," she chuckled, not missing the way his eyes had followed the two youths into the crowd looking concerned. He turned back to her with a frown. "Kinda grows on you actually."

5.

"I knew this was a bad idea," The Splendid Angharad gasped, sweat beading on her forehead as she gripped tightly to Max's gloved hands, "We should've -ah!- w-waited for Furiosa."

Max rolled his eyes, but didn't comment. He figured that stating he also wished Furiosa was present would not help the situation. Instead he kept up the search for a semi-clean rag to wipe at Angharad's head. It was hard one-handed and not able to stray far from her side, but the young woman was obviously in tremendous pain and the barely concealed fear in her eyes told the Road Warrior he had better stick close or else. It wasn't as if there were too many places he could go anyway. The two of them were cooped up in the carriage of the rig, a good three miles South of the Citadel.

The War Boys had been called away by Furiosa to search across the salt flats for land and survivors so no one was available to go on regular runs for supplies and gasoline. Max had stayed behind to guard the city at Furiosa's insistence, keeping a constant eye on the horizon even though he knew it'd be weeks before they returned. As it were, waiting for them to return to go on a run made little sense and so Max had volunteered, bringing Angharad along on her demand. They had left the citadel in the capable hands of Toast the Knowing.

And then Angharad had gone into labor.

"Owww!" Angharad's high pitched whine of pain still somehow managed to sound accusatory as she all but twisted Max's arm off as another contraction hit. They were right on top of each other at this point. "Ow, ow, ow!"

"You're, uh...you're doin' real good," Max muttered in a dry voice, flitting filthy fingers down the back of the young woman's neck in a hopefully calming caress.

Angharad was huffing and puffing as if she meant to blow the whole world down and Max was seeing visions of his wife every time he blinked. Jessie had been similarly put out by childbirth. Gripping and cursing and half-heartedly blaming Max for 'putting this thing in me!'. They had laughed about the whole ordeal later, cuddled around their new baby, but it had been rough going even with a whole medical team there to assist. Angharad had no medical team to coach her along, only Max, and she still wasn't hissing and spitting. Instead she just looked sad and afraid and as another contraction hit, Max knew from experience it was time to push and told her as such.

"I can't," she whimpered, throwing her head to the side in discomfort, "I can't I'm not s-strong enough."

If there was one thing Max had been positive he would never hear from any of Immortan Joe's wives, but especially Angharad, it was that they weren't strong. These beautiful young women had survived living under the yolk of a literal monster and made moves to escape his tyranny practically solo. Sure Furiosa had assisted, but that was after being sought out by Angharad herself who had seen the whole plan carried out to near perfection. She was the strongest one of them all and lead through example as well as demand wherever she went. Childbirth was not going to stop her.

Readjusting his grip on her hand so that she was made to lean into his side, Max whispered into the girl's ear, "You're stronger than me." Her breathing hitched and she shifted on his shoulder. "You're stronger than your sisters…you're probably stronger than Furiosa too." A disbelieving huff of laughter. "You can do this, Angharad."

If wasn't a sweeping speech of all her feats or a declaration of great admiration, but the few murmured words seemed to steel the splendid thing. Hair sticking to her hot forehead she pulled herself up a little straighter, legs splayed out before her. Her grip on Max's hand tightened as she leaned forward and ripped off the portion of her well worn shirt that covered her bulging stomach. She balled the bit of cloth in her free hand before shoving it between her teeth, blue eyes looking determined.

Max was there through all of it -the pushing, the screaming, the crying- and he'd never seen any woman look as strong as Angharad looked when she gave a final, great push that brought her child fully into the world. Once properly started the process hadn't taken long at all and her squishy, squealing son howled at the injustice of his rude exodus as Max picked him up from the floor of the car. Already dust and dirt coated his tiny body, but as Max turned him this way and that, his pocket knife making quick work of the umbilical cord, he had to admit; the boy was perfect.

"No lumps," he reported, looking back over at the Splendid Angharad who was leaned back in her seat, sweat pouring into her eyes and panting. "Looks like..a perfectly healthy boy."

"My son."

It was as if birthing a new human had also birthed a new Angharad. Her voice was deeper, likely hoarse from screaming. Her eyes were clearer, face broader, as she reached out thinly built arms for the infant. Max placed the boy right on his mother's breast and she inhaled him deeply, eyes never blinking as she used her fingers to delicately wipe goop and gore off his pink face. His screams lessened with each passing moment he was locked under her gaze and Max imagined the two were tying their souls together with ropes made of love and devotion and all those other pretty things that had been lost in the Waste.

"He's perfect."

"Maybe he is."

"He needs a name."

"Maybe Sprog."

The name came so suddenly from his lips that it shocked the silence back into Max. Angharad's head shot up, finally breaking eye contact with her baby, as she analyzed her companion. She'd never heard the name from him, but the odd look of her face made Max think perhaps she'd heard it from Furiosa. Heard of the pretty woman married to an officer and her young son that had been run down by fledgling versions of what Immortan Joe had eventually deemed War Boys. The air in the cab grew stale with awkwardness an Max wished he could devour the name back into his soul rather than have Angharad look at him like that. When she finally blinked, releasing him from her prison, it was only to look back at her own son, wrapped tightly now in the last bits of her skirts. She was stark naked.

"No," she murmured at last, rocking the baby gently just once. The Road Warrior looked away. "No, I want to call him Max...after my father."

He turned back to squint at her, curious that she remembered her father and that he'd had a name as newly rare as Max before catching her eye again. She looked equal parts amused, caring, and hesitant, her blue irises tracking him from the passenger.

She wanted to name the baby-

After him.

She considered him-

Her father.

"Is that alright, dad?"

Words escaped him and all he could do was nod slowly, watching as the young woman seemed to sigh and ease there in the seat. The spark, the inner glow she'd been carrying inside her for nine months was now nestled safely in her arms. In a world where Immortan Joe was no more. She looked absolutely ecstatic and it made her even more gorgeous than her natural, goddess like features. Max let himself bask in the two's warmth, having missed it after all these years. He would move when the sun went down, when it was cooler on the engine and the car and the baby. For now he just sat and stared at his last child who had turned out to be his oldest child -and grandchild- and thought about Furiosa and about things growing on him.

+1

They were all together. Max, the girls, and Furiosa they were a family, something Max was sure he'd never have again. But when he gripped Fury close to him in the night, and set Cheedo on his shoulders so she could reach the branches of the first trees grown in decades, and rocked Max II to sleep at nap time each afternoon he couldn't imagine a time when he hadn't been in a family unit. A time when he didn't have this swell of affection in his chest for each and every one of these people. Those years of loneliness seemed to melt away, no longer settling into his bones and dragging him down, but instead rolling off his shoulders in waves each day.

He loved them. All of them.

But he still took time to himself.

He still went out into the Waste to think and reflect and to talk to his ghosts somewhere where they couldn't sneak up on him. It was a necessary time and it was a good time and he changed his destination every trip so that it wasn't tracklable to his new family. Or so he thought.

When Nux idled up to his side on one of his many trips, thin fingers fiddling over each other, Max only spared him a brief glance and a nod of acknowledgment. If the pup was savvy enough to track him here without being detected immediately then he had as much right to the view as anyone. The two men stood in silence for stretch of time which was not unusual for Max, but was a moment of note for Nux who usually liked to fill the space between him and others with words. The younger man was nervous, his anxiety vibrating out of his skeletal frame, but Max was not known to dig at people in return for not being digged at. So they just stood together.

"I love Capable."

The words came with a certainty and calm that made Max turn to the former War Boy with a raised brow. Nux was still staring out to the horizon, eyes not sensitive to the intense rays coming off the sun. The Road Warrior wondered where he had even learned a word like 'love', but then reasoned he'd probably learned it from Capable who learned it from Angarad who learned it from Furiosa who learned it in a time before time.

"That's good." Nux looked at him and Max focused on his lumps. Wondered how long he'd live. "Love is good."

"Is it? I wasn't afraid of anything before. Not even death." The boy finally blinked, eyes coming out of it too wet. "I knew I'd move on to Valhalla and that didn't scare me. But now...I think about dying...about leaving Capable...and I'm scared."

Max sighed and looked back towards the sun. He remembered that fear. As he'd put on his uniform every day, and kissed his family goodbye he would worry about what would become of them if he never came back. If Sprog would come out alright without him, if Jessie would find another man to take care of her. Those thoughts would make him hesitate before making moves, make him overthink simple routines until he'd nearly lost his badge. He'd had to compartmentalize his love for his family away from a fear of losing them or them losing him.

With Furiosa and the girls now it wasn't about fear. It was about feeling grateful for any time they did have together even if it was short. It was about making sure he said goodbye to each of them before heading out on a run and leaving them ready to live without him not if but when the time came. It was about, oddly enough, life going on. That was such an alien concept in these times that Max understood how Nux couldn't necessarily cope with it now that his life seemed to find meaning in Capable. However, he knew this fear he harboured may make him hesitate, may make him overthink, and he had less time than most.

Feeling strangely paternal, Max reached out a gloved hand and clamped it over the back of Nux's neck. The boy didn't flinch under the touch, recognizing that it was not the same aggressive, cowing gesture it had been throughout most of his life. Max met his eye.

"You're afraid now because you have something to lose." He let his words settle for a moment, letting Nux acknowledge that his old life could not say the same. "But so does Capable."

Same as always, his few words seemed to do the trick and Nux snorted a surprised huff of laughter, maybe realizing for the first time that someone out there felt the same as he did. And towards him no less. He'd never had someone afraid to lose him before; afraid to be lost from him. The knowledge seemed to bolster his mood and he stood taller beneath the setting sun, teeth bared to the Waste. A smile.

When he threw his skinny arms around Max's neck it took them both by surprise and it was a stiff and uncomfortable embrace. But they didn't shy away from it because they'd just established that they weren't shying away from love.

"Thanks...Max."

He'd almost expected to hear 'dad' as he'd gotten so used to, but he figured the War Boy still had his pride. And maybe even the knowledge that if he was pursuing Capable they couldn't both be calling the man 'dad'. Whatever his thought process, Max knew that they were reaching a new relationship currently. Crossing that line the girls had all sprinted over into an area adjacent to family.

"You're welcome, son."


End file.
